


Desperate Measures

by Tosa



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M, Multi, botched attempts at sex, overzealous food metaphors, plus one surprise special guest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 08:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7162220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tosa/pseuds/Tosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It used to happen on JMC vessels all the time,” Rimmer explained, “especially before they let women enlist. You're surrounded by the endless, yawning void of space, trapped in a floating metal tomb with only your fellow crewmen for company, light years between you and the touch of a consenting woman... and suddenly, sausage starts to seem a lot more appetizing.”</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>In which Lister propositions Rimmer, and drama on the Red Dwarf reaches meteoric proportions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some vague period between season 8 and 9, with the cliffhanger at the end of season 8 shrugged off as listlessly as the canon would bid us to. I like the fandom headcanon that Rimmer Prime returns from being Ace, tosses Rimmer Reborn the keys to the Wildfire, and becomes the hologram we saw puttering around season 10. I personally picture the dwarfers closer to season 8 than 9 in this fic, but if you’re into the #vintage meat then have at it, I can’t stop you. 
> 
> Mildly offensive language and teasing about gay urges can be found up ahead. I’m kind surprised I ended up commemorating a decade of fic-writing with a series that essentially disappeared for a decade, but eh, I had a ton of fun writing this. Enjoy!

“I don’t understand,” Rimmer said. But the rigid, 40 degree incline at which he was leaning away from Lister suggested that yes, actually, he understood quite clearly. When his bunkmate made an attempt to appeal to him, making a grab for Rimmer’s hands, Rimmer yanked his off the table and hid them in his lap faster than Lister could say, “Relax.”

Lister laid across the table, chewing his lip and thinking. The half-missing face of the clown puzzle peaking out from underneath his stomach seemed to be mocking his poor choice of come-on. Lister was willing to admit he was off his game - he hadn’t chosen the best time, or used the best tactics, to broach the subject. But he had to know if there was even the slightest chance he wouldn’t die the fate of the neighborhood eunuch, and so he sat back and tried again.

“Rimmer-”

“There’s a puzzle piece in the fold of your stomach.”

Technically it was just stuck to his skin, but Lister didn’t have the energy to argue, peeling it off and flinging it at the smarmy hologram.

“Rimmer, listen to me! All I’m saying’s that it might be…” Pleasurable? Tolerable? A distraction? He didn’t want to risk complimenting Rimmer - if his head got any bigger, they’d have to switch him back to soft light to have enough room to move around the ship. “...Well, okay,  you know know how it feels, stuck here doing jigsaws all day! Besides, it wouldn’t _mean_ anything if we did it. We wouldn’t even have to do it more than once, if you hated it.” Lister caught himself. “If _either_ of us hated it.”

“So I haven’t misinterpreted. Oh my god!” For a moment Rimmer seemed to turn into a churchly old woman, hand flying to his scandalized breast. “The day has finally come. You’ve gone space gay!”

Now it was Lister’s turn to act scandalized. “ _Space gay?_ ”

“It used to happen on JMC vessels all the time,” Rimmer explained, “especially before they let women enlist. You're surrounded by the endless, yawning void of space, trapped in a floating metal tomb with only your fellow crewmen for company, light years between you and the touch of a consenting woman... and suddenly, sausage starts to seem a lot more appetizing.”

“Oh my _god,_ Rimmer, that’s not real!”

“What, are you trying to tell me these aren’t extenuating circumstances? That you were _always_ attracted to me?” Rimmer’s lips curled into a shitty little weasel grin that almost had Lister rethinking the proposition. “Of course! How could I not realize? This isn’t desperation: you’ve been hopelessly in love with me this whole time, and have been waiting for just the right moment to-”

“No, no,” Lister interrupted, hands waving as if to physically swat the notion away, “you’re right, desperation bent me. I just don’t see why you have to call it… that. I don’t see why you have to call it anything at all other than drastic measures.”

Rimmer eyed Lister, his narcissism drained away in a flash and replaced by a familiar paranoia. “Drastic? What do you mean to say about me?” A light seemed to go on in his eyes. “Wait a second - am I last in line?”

Lister was thrown. “What are you talking about?!”

By now, Rimmer was infuriated by an elaborate imaginary scenario. He blustered, “I'm not an idiot, Lister! You've been rejected by the whole ship and I'm your last resort, admit it.”

“The ‘whole’ ship? We don’t even have enough people to play a game of rugby,” Lister scoffed. “Besides, who else would I even ask, the Cat? Why would I want to shag the Cat, that's - why, that's practically incest!”

Rimmer fixed him with a suspicious look. “How do you figure?”

“I mean, Frankenstein was my cat, and he's her descendant, so that makes him my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandcat! In fact it's worse because he's not my descendant, he's my pet’s - that's bestiality!”

Rimmer sucked his teeth. “He turned you down, didn't he?”

“Smeghead said he wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole!” Lister cried. “Said I could scour my body with bleach and he still wouldn't bite!”

Rimmer shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

“I know!” Lister pouted, shoving a jigsaw piece across the table. “I’m not _that_ disgusting.”

“Not about that, you grimy louse!” Rimmer glared at him. “I mean I can't believe you picked the Cat before me. Am I really no better than leftovers? Am I the last, misshapen chip on the plate? The one that's all charred, looks like someone in the back might've dropped it on the floor at some point? No one wants it, so you leave it to any homeless who happen to dig it out of the bin, and even _they_ turn up their noses? Did I even rank above the android in your eyes, Lister?”

Lister shrugged. “Hey, Krytes has some impressive groinal attachments…”

The massive, shit-eating grin that ensued could only be rivaled in size by the responding scowl. Rimmer was clearly not amused, his nostrils flared like the mouths of conch shells. If Lister put his ear to them, he could probably hear Hammond Organ music playing.

“What are you so upset about?” Lister asked. “You hate me, anyway!”

“Yeah, but. In a chummy way!”

“A chummy way!”

“Yeah!” Rimmer was floundering. “I've always felt we've had a certain chemistry, a will-they-won't-they vibe that supercharges our arguments.”

Lister’s lips twitched. “ _Super_ charges?”

Rimmer colored. “Shut up, _you_ propositioned _me_.”

It dawned on Lister that Rimmer was awfully jealous, perhaps more than his usual neuroticism could account for. Which meant he cared at least somewhat whether or not he was the person Lister wanted to sleep with. Which meant…

“Wait - would you, then?”

Rimmer averted his eyes. “...I'm thinking about it. Endless, yawning space, and all that.”

Lister all but leapt out of his chair at the end of that first sentence, a manic look he normally reserved for the finest curries and freshest lagers now fixed on his bunkmate. Flustered, Rimmer snapped, “I'm not sure yet, you horndog! I'm going to need some time to think it over!”

“Oh, you _tease_ ,” Lister cooed, just before dodging a well-aimed puzzle box lid to the face.

-

“Where’s Goalpost-head and Gerbil-face?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Kryten replied. He seemed a bit distracted, struggling with one of the larger computers. “Probably - hm - probably in their bunk, or, uh... one of the other three thousand rooms on Red Dwarf, or… Oh, goodness.” He sat back with a frustrated sigh. “Mr. Cat, do you think you could move over? It’s rather difficult to do a vital systems check when you’re lying across the keyboard.”

“Well, I’m trying to nap!” snapped the Cat. “And that’s rather difficult when you’re trying to do computery things!”

There was a brief staring contest, but Kryten relented almost immediately. “Oh… Alright. I suppose that in the meantime I can just vacuum…”

The Cat tensed up. Metal Herman Munster was going to unleash that roaring chore beast? Oh, hell no! “You want to play dirty, Eraser-head? Fine, I’ll get off your stupid keyboard, just don’t bring that thing out!”

Kryten was delighted by his accidental triumph. “Why thank you, sir! I’ll get to it right away…”

But before the android could press a single button, Holly popped onto the screen, startling Kryten and the Cat. They seemed to be presenting as male today, but it was best never to make assumptions, and the genderfluid avatar didn’t give the other dwarfers a chance to ask.

“I know,” Holly told them, knowingly.

There was a beat. “...You know what?” Kryten asked.

“Oh. Right. Guess my timing’s a little off,” Holly admitted. “I mean I know where Dave and Arnold are. You’ll never believe the wacky adventures they’re up to right now.”

“I’m sure Alphabet-head’s having a grand old time showing off his little collector dictators, if Lister hasn’t blown his brains out from boredom yet,” the Cat drawled.

“Not the collectators!” Kryten’s hand flew to his chest, appalled by the very idea.

“Naw,” said Holly, “they’re not doing that. It’s much more scandalous. They’re playing hide-the-sausage.”

Kryten frowned. “I’m not familiar with that game.”

“You wouldn’t be,” the Cat said dryly. He jabbed an accusing finger at Holly. “But do you mean to tell me that they’re playing bedroom rodeo with all bulls and no matadors?”

Kryten was thrown by what appeared to him to be a radical change in subject. Meanwhile, Holly gave the closest to a shrug that a disembodied head can give, which is a very distinct sort of bob. “I may have spoke too soon. Sorry to mislead you all, it’s just rare that I’ve got the hot gossip.”

“So they are _not_ doing jigsaws,” the Cat clarified. At a loss, Kryten threw his hands up.

“They haven’t done anything yet,” Holly clarified, “but they’ve talked it over. Any minute, now, they’ll be at it like unusually repressed rabbits.”

The Cat’s face took on an expression that was somehow even more haughty than usual. He puffed out his cravat-bedecked chest. “Ha! Gerbil-face couldn’t pull gourmet, so he’s settled for the most charred and pathetic chip on the plate!”

Kryten wasn’t even listening at this point. He sat down at the computer and started typing, determined to finish that systems check.

Holly looked confused. “Are you saying Dave asked you for sex first, Cat?”

“ _What?_ ” Kryten leapt to his feet. “When did all _that_ happen?!”

“Buddy-boy’s lonely, so he naturally propositioned the best-looking guy on the ship,” the Cat explained, pointing to himself. “But being a five-star establishment, I reserved the right to reject a certain slobbish, athlete-footed patronage. So he asked Captain of the Geek Battalion to wet his whistle instead.”

Kryten squared his shoulders. “Alright. I’m going to find them.”

“Did you understand what I just said?” asked the Cat. “Because if you had, you wouldn’t say that!”

“I’m not eager to find them - who knows what horrors I’ll walk in on if I’m not careful? But I know that if it involves those two and sex, it must be terrible and it must be stopped.” Kryten raised his chin, a determined, far-off look in his eye. “I’ll save you, Mr. Lister!”

He marched out of the room. Holly sniffed. “Didn’t even bother asking where to go. Should be interesting, seeing how long it takes him to find them.”

“Are they someplace deep in the ship?” the Cat asked. They’d certainly get more privacy that way.

Holly shook from side to side. “Naw - but people always check the most obvious place last, don’t they?”

-

“If you’re going to let me down, then let me down,” said Lister dramatically, “just don’t drag it on forever!”

They were sitting in their bunk, still. Lister had kept at the jigsaw, trying to concentrate on the creepiness of the clown in order to distract himself from more euphemistic jigsaws, but it was hard. Literally and figuratively. Meanwhile, Rimmer was dutifully studying a book entitled _Exciting Light Fixtures from Around the World_ , which he now lowered.

“It’s been _three hours_ ,” Rimmer said. “You’ve gone _years_ without human contact, _millenia_ if you count the time you weren’t even conscious. What’s a few more days?”

“ _Days?_ ” Lister repeated, aghast.

“I told you, I’m _thinking,_ ” Rimmer huffed. “I have to weigh all the options!”

“What options? Are you stowing away some extra crewmate I don’t know about?”

“There’s always celibacy,” Rimmer pointed out, waving his book. “It’s the best way to avoid contracting whatever parasite is currently stewing in those grimy pants of yours. I endured - er, I _willfully chose_ to remain celibate for most of my life, it’ll be fitting if that’s how I spend the rest of my death.”

“But you don’t _have_ to,” Lister urged. “You were Ace Rimmer! You have to miss flying around, pulling girls from every planet!” His roommate was intent on ignoring him. Lister sighed. “C’mon, Rimmer, my balls are turning indigo!”

No response. Out of frustration, Lister threw his head back and let loose the loudest and most annoying groan he could muster.

“Was that a sample of what you sound like in bed?” called a voice from the door. “Guess I’ve got no regrets!”

The Cat sauntered into the room, grinning. “A little A.I. told me you lowered your standards!”

Lister shrugged. “Yeah, but good luck getting him to lower his,” he said, jabbing a thumb at Rimmer. “He’s been leaving me hanging all day… which, come to think of it, might actually be kinkier. You _dom,_ you!” He grinned ear to ear.

Rimmer glared in response. “Oh, stop it. You’re lucky I’m even _considering_ doing this with you.”

The Cat looked gleeful. “So it’s true! You really _must_ be desperate to consider courting Alphabet-head - your ego must be _shot!_ What was your plan if he turned you down? The scutters? That flirty vending machine on Floor 5? Throwing yourself out of the airlock without a suit? That last one’s what I’d personally do if I _successfully_ boned Goalpost-head.”

“Hey!” Rimmer cried, jumping to his feet. “I happen to be an incredibly gracious and skillful lover!”

The Cat snorted. “Yeah, right, because it wasn’t sheer adrenaline pushing those damsels into your arms. Your diary reads like a Nicholas Sparks ripoff - are you sure your personality didn’t scare them all away?”

Even Lister looked skeptical, the git, and _he_ was the one who’d been drooling over Rimmer up until now! The hypocrisy of it all filled the hologram with such righteous anger that, naturally, he had to retaliate with the pettiest insults he could think of.

“It’s not like this is a favorable situation for me, either, _miladdo._ I’m not the one who snapped and went chasing after your rank, curry-smeared mug!”

Lister looked surprised, but not particularly offended, grinning through Rimmer’s insults as he often did; and Rimmer, just as true to form, was infuriated by the sight.

“What are you laughing about, Lister? You should be grateful to have landed a partner this clean and mentally cognizant when you’re isolated by three million years, light years of space, and however many fully-evolved colonies have sprung up in your toenail fungus. You should be grateful to have me, period - I didn’t _have_ to come back, after all, I was forced to because it was hard on my equipment.” Rimmer rattled on, not noticing how quiet it’d become. “And you’re right, you know, with all the amazing encounters I had as Ace, it was frankly devastating to return to this monotony. The Wildfire helped me escape angry mobs, witness the glory of an imploding star up close, and traverse time and space in the blink of an eye, but you want to know what was the _best_ use I got out of it? Getting away from your annoying gimboid face!”

Rimmer stopped, silenced by the mixture of anger and hurt in Lister’s eyes. Even the Cat, as dense as he was, could tell a line had been crossed. He froze where he stood, hoping that it would allow him to disappear from notice.

“You know what?” Lister gave the least blasé shrug they’d ever seen. “Forget it. The offer is off the table.”

Rimmer hazarded a laugh, but it came out shaky. “Come on, Listy, I was only-”

But Lister stormed out of the room, with not a single glance backwards. Mouth still open mid-excuse, Rimmer stared after him.

The Cat sucked the air between his teeth. “Oooh… Sucks to be you, buddy!”

-

Rimmer was alone with himself for the first time in hours and it felt _great!_ He could organize his collectable dictators of the month in a little row without being propositioned or mocked. It was hours of… well, okay, it was more like two minutes of fun. He arranged them by continent, and then in an arrowhead formation, and then finally, after staring at them for a while, he busied himself knocking them over and picking them back up again. But it was great fun, of course. Almost as much fun as going through his lamppost photos…

Alright, he was bored. There, he admitted it. He swiped his old diary off the bedside table, noting how thoroughly the spine had been bent by repeated readings amongst the Red Dwarf crew. He was feeling particularly pathetic, and the only thing to do when wallowing in your patheticness is to make yourself sick reminiscing over times when you _weren’t_ so pathetic.

His adventures as Ace were well documented (if embellished), and he settled down in his bunk with the hope that the JMC-issue sheets would cushion the impact of the mental terrorism he was about to wreak on himself.

_Zagon II. Nightfall. The mistress of the count I brought home safely was giving me the eye for the better part of dinner, but I’m still tired from that aerial gunfight. I think Vladimir Von Ivill (yes, that’s the villain’s real name, gag) may have broken my wrist when we were battling for control of the helicopter, but I don’t care to check. There’s no point. The program will right itself eventually and I’ve endured worse. During my escape, I rode on a motorcycle that, naturally, I leapt off and smashed into an oncoming enemy bike, and the whole thing was so absurd I couldn’t help but think it was something Lister would do, or at least be amused by._

With a scowl, Rimmer skipped ahead to a different entry.

_The people here dress like Oscar Wilde and RuPaul share a monopoly over the world’s sweatshops. The Cat would be right at home._

He skipped ahead. There, another:

_-shrill, preachy android that at least looked less like a crash test dummy than old Kryten-_

And another:

_-had to rate the main computer a 4/5 to Holly’s negative 3._

And there was more - so, so much more. Although one name, of course, rose above the rest. A beacon of homesick redundancy.

With a roll of the eyes, Rimmer shut his diary. “Oh my god, I _get_ it, I’ll go apologize to Lister!”

-

Of all places, he found Lister in Peterson’s old bunk. It wouldn’t have even occurred to Rimmer to check there, except that the door was open and the hallways were filled with the sound of tone-deaf cats being skinned alive.

Lister was slumped over in the bed, fiddling with his guitar. When he spotted Rimmer in the doorway, he glared and said, “Go away,” but then set his instrument aside and looked expectant, going so far as to fold his hands in his lap. Rimmer rolled his eyes, half at Lister and half at himself, for having fallen into such predictable patterns.

“Look. I’m sorry.”

Lister waited. Then, “Is that it?”

Rimmer gave an agonizingly slow shrug. “I… will have sex with you? To prove it?”

Lister sighed, bowing his head. “I don’t want you to do that, Rimmer. Just forget it.”

As emotionally lazy as he was, Rimmer was tempted to take him up on the offer. But years of rescuing hysterical dames whose families, countries, and sometimes planets had been ravaged had given him a crash course on empathy. So with a belabored sigh, he went over and slumped beside Lister on the bed.

“What would _you_ like me to do, to make it up to you?” Rimmer asked.

“I don’t know,” Lister replied, avoiding his gaze. “I kind of feel like being courted.”

Rimmer’s eyebrows shot up. “So in order to win me over you just had to whine about your balls, but _I_ have to make a romantic effort?”

Lister looked wistfully off to the side. Rimmer sighed.

“Your… athlete’s foot is, er. Not quite as horrific as usual.” No budge. “And your guitar skills… God, no, I can’t lie about that one, I only just heard you strangling the poor thing to death.”

“I’m not feeling the love here, Rimsy.”

The hologram could feel his face grow red with frustration, which seemed a pointless and humiliating human reaction to leave programmed in. What the hell was he supposed to say to Lister? Arnold Rimmer didn’t do sentimental. Sentimental just about made him want to puke.

As he stared intently at Lister’s face, trying to annoy him into relenting, he realized he wasn’t even frustrated about the sex thing. Sure, he still _wanted_ to, but he primarily wanted Lister to _look at him_. The more the crew of the Red Dwarf had grown over the years, the more it became apparent that Lister’s time spent with Rimmer was always last resort. Since Rimmer had left to become Ace, Lister had been chummier with the Cat than ever. He had Kryten to play nanny to any emotional need he had, and then of course there was…

“I’m waitin’,” said Lister.

Rimmer unclenched his teeth. “I… Oh, I don’t know, I guess I appreciate when you used to go up to the observatory with me. And I suppose, at times, you’ve been a good listener, and compassionate... or whatever.”

Lister surprised Rimmer by finally turning around, a bewildered look on his face.

“I was just egging you on to say my bum looked good or something! You really think I’m compassionate?”

“Or _whatever_ ,” Rimmer huffed. When Lister held his gaze, Rimmer averted his eyes. “I mean. You’re alright, when you’re not relentlessly mocking me. You’ve been patient enough to put up with my many neuroticisms and there are _very_ many - and even after I came back to the Red Dwarf with my tail between my legs, you were the only one who never made me feel like I was a coward. It helped, even just having that _one person_ who didn’t assume that fear is what brought me back to Red Dwarf, but instead understood I missed a sense of home and-”

Oh - so _that’s_ what kissing Lister felt like. Surprisingly, there was no bacterial aftertaste, but that was perhaps what the curry was meant to mask. Rimmer made a run through of Lister’s palette with his tongue just to be sure.

“Just to be clear,” Rimmer panted when they parted, “this isn’t a culmination of anything.”

“No, not at all,” Lister agreed, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“We’re not acting on long hidden feelings.”

“Yeah...”

“Or suddenly realizing long repressed ones.”

“Of _course_ not...”

“And - oh, smeg - th-this is _just_ desperation…”

“Rimmer?”

“Yes, Listy?”

“Would you kindly refrain from telling me ‘no homo’ in the middle of a hookup?”

Rimmer winced, which was difficult mid-kiss. “Yes, Listy.”

-

After they’d returned to their bunk, they’d turned off the lights because Rimmer was feeling jittery about the whole affair, but now the darkness was proving a hindrance. They’d barely gotten Lister’s shirt over his head without accidentally strangling him with it, and now they were struggling with… er…

“I told you it’d be easier to aim with the lights on.”

“ _Damn_ it! Holly, I’d really hope you weren’t listening, but - lights!”

The lights came on. Rimmer let loose a terrified scream.

Lister yanked up the sheets, hurt. “I know we didn’t talk about this, but our insulting Odd Couple dynamic needs to go on pause in the bedroom…”

“Not you! _Him!_ ” Rimmer pointed behind Lister, towards the bathroom, where the Cat sat with wide, unblinking eyes. Lister had never seen him look so vacant-eyed before; it reminded him of when his gram’s cat used to stop what she was doing and gaze at a fixed, seemingly empty space, as if locked in a staring contest with a ghost.

“Do you _mind?_ ” Lister cried, clutching the sheets.

The Cat shook his head, “Nope!” and kept on staring.

Rimmer yanked some of the covers over himself. “Smegging cats. This has happened to me before, you know. You’re with a girl at her house, you’re trying to have a little hanky panky, and just as you’re about to finish, you realize her faithful feline voyeur is watching you from the foot of the bed! It totally kills the mood.”

Lister fixed Rimmer with a look until he relented.

“... _Fine._ It happened to my _brothers_. Are you happy? Hm? Are you happy that you made me admit that?”

“Isn’t anybody going to ask what I’m doing here?” the Cat huffed. “I have a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Rimmer went through about three seconds of intense rage before utterly deflating. “Oh, what the hell… What are you doing here?”

“I’m constructing criticism,” said the Cat. The humans gave him bleary looks. He slapped a notebook he was holding on his lap. “I’ve got tons of notes for you! Look, item one: keep the lights on…”

“Cat, get out,” Lister sighed.

The Cat stood up, but their hope only lasted for a moment. He reached up to adjust his cravat… but then unclipped it. And carefully set it aside. And then he was unbuttoning his jacket…

“Some of these notes are easier to show than tell,” the Cat confessed.

Lister’s jaw dropped, and was thus petrified for a good three seconds. “Y-?! You can’t be serious! Rimmer-”

But when he turned to his companion, his mouth wasn’t gaping in twin horror, nor was he boiling with rage. His brow wrinkled with the befuddlement of a man trying to decide whether or not to it was worth it to take the train when he could just walk.

“...I can’t tell if I like this,” Rimmer said, squinting. “I definitely don’t _hate_ it, but the eight nipples have me on the fence.”

“Excuse me?!” Lister cried, turning to look. The Cat had undressed more quickly than Lister had expected, especially considering the care with which he folded each of his clothes. In fact, his velour top was currently being adjusted on a hanger that came seemingly from nowhere.

“Shallow of me, I know,” Rimmer admitted, “but I’m used to just the two.”

Lister babbled. “This is… I don’t… What’s…?”

“You can say no, Listy, and we’ll throw him out, but I understand if you don’t want him to go. I mean, you _did_ proposition him first.”

Lister was at a loss. He felt like he was going insane! “And you’d be _okay_ with that?”

Rimmer shrugged, his expressed resigned. “If I’m going to have gay sex today, I might as well go all out and have an interspecies threesome. Why not!”

Just as the Cat had successfully undone his sparkly belt buckle, Kryten barged into the room, a veritable elephant between his legs. Rimmer’s “down for anything” attitude immediately flew out the window where it was crushed by the suffocating pressure of deep space.

“What in hell is _that!_ ” he shrieked, pointing.

“Sir, I’d _think_ you’d have seen a vacuum cleaner before,” Kryten huffed. “But no matter: I’m so glad I’ve finally found you!”

Lister frowned. “Finally? We’ve been in our bunk most of the day.”

“Well excuse me for thinking you’d like to upgrade your accommodations for such an important event!” Kryten planted his hands on his hips. “Mister Lister, what could you be thinking, defiling yourself with Mr. Rimmer this way?”

“It’s none of your business!” said Lister. “It’s not anybody’s business but me and his!”

Kryten set his jaw. “Not to disrespect your life choices, sir, but you’ve survived for years on Red Dwarf without resorting to unhealthy sexual experimentation. Why now? We have virtual reality suites that can conform to your wildest dreams, and all kinds of, em, well I’ll admit that I don’t know what other sorts of items you use for this sort of gratification, but given the sheer breadth of the ship I’d imagine you can get creative enough to stave off whatever existential lust is currently clouding your mind! Not to mention you’ve always said Mr. Rimmer was a - a smeee… A _smeee_ …”

“Novelty Condom-head’s right; you two _are_ nasty together,” the Cat agreed.

Kryten was touched. “Oh, Mr. Cat…”

“That’s why you need me!” And with that, the Cat unzipped his pants. Lister and Kryten shrieked in stereo. All Rimmer said was, “Huh.”

Frustration and a stark naked crewmate drove Lister to mash his hands into his eyes. “Would you all stop telling me how to live out my stupid, boring time on this stupid, boring ship? If I want to have an existential crisis and experiment with all kinds of weird sex, that’s my god-given right! This is _my_ yawning inner void, and I can fill it however I want!”

“I’ve never heard _that_ term for it before,” the Cat exclaimed, throwing himself down on the already cramped bed. Rimmer shoved his legs out of his lap with a glare.

“I _knew_ it was existential,” Kryten exclaimed. “Nothing makes human males sexually act out quite like the terrifying abyss of deep space. Sir, don’t you see how unhealthy this all is? Why, just imagine - if you do this once, now, it could become routine! Day and night you’ll have to give in to Mr. Rimmer’s many salacious whims, and-” the droid hiccuped- “you won’t have any time for _me_ , anymore…”

Rimmer leaned in to Lister’s ear. “You’re absolutely right - if you’d have wanted, he’d probably let you put a fleshlight into his socket and-”

Lister shoved Rimmer’s face away. “Aw, Krytes… You really _have_ to stop getting so jealous of every person I try to sleep with!”

“It’s unhealthy.”

“Yes, like Holly said, it’s unhealthy. You know I won’t ever neglect-” Lister stopped. “Wait - Holly?! When did you get here?”

“Technically I’m everywhere on the ship, always,” they reminded him.

Things weren’t just getting out of hand - they’d taken the pinky finger hostage and climbed to the top of the empire state building. Lister rubbed his temples. “It’s so crowded in here… I think it’s time for some people to leave.”

Kryten planted his feet firmly and crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving this room until Mr. Rimmer does.”

Rimmer curled his lip at the android, but any vicious comeback he could muster was cut short by Lister. “ _Krytes_ , it’s none of your business what me and _Mr. Rimmer_ get up to together!” Rimmer was surprised what an effect being called “mister” had on him, and grabbed a bedpost for support. This arrangement could turn out quite swimmingly if they could get some smegging privacy...

“Yeah, Kryten,” said Holly. “Beat it.”

Lister shot the A.I. a look. They seemed genuinely offended by this. “What, you mean me? I’m just up here on the screen, I don’t take up any room.”

“Kryten, Holly, _please_ leave,” Lister begged.

“This is discrimination against artificial lifeforms, is what it is,” Holly complained. “Just you wait, Rimmer, he’ll turn on you next.”

“Rimmer isn’t leaving until he wants to leave!” Lister cried, frustrated.

“But why choose _him?_ ” the Cat asked, buried somewhere under the covers.

“Yes, Listy. Why me?” Rimmer gestured to the Cat's one visible, well-manicured foot peering out from the covers. “Your first choice has tapped back in. And what about your great, big obsession with Kochanski, the person you _refused_ to give up even after you left her three million years in the past? Why are you ready to forsake all that so quickly?”

Lister hesitated. “Because… you know!”

“No, I _really_ don’t. You’ve seen the embodiment of my self-esteem try to eat me alive, I genuinely don’t understand why you’ve bothered to put up with this pandemonium just to knock rockets with me.”

Everyone in the room turned to Lister, whose gaze bounced from face to face without a clue where to land. It was nightmarish; here he was, stark naked, with a room full of people staring expectantly at him.

“It’s because… well, even though we argue, and even though you weren’t my first choice, and even though it seems like we still have to let a third party into this equation,” he added, gesturing to the Cat, “we’ve been through a lot together. I wouldn’t call us best friends or anything, but. We’ve got some pretty intense history. It’s hard to ignore that.”

For the moment, the room fell respectfully quiet.

“I knew it,” Rimmer murmured, voice soft. “You’ve been gay for me this _whole time-_ ”

He fended off Lister’s swats with a grin that was significantly less weasel-like and more genuinely giddy that one would expect.

Holly sighed. “You keep saying gay this, gay that. There are other words for what you are, you know.”

Lister slowed his assault on Rimmer. “What, you mean like bisexual? Pansexual?”

“I was going for ‘smeghead’ or ‘arsehole,’ but if the shoe fits,” Holly droned.

“I think it’s time everybody left,” Rimmer declared with Ace-like finality. Not that he did the voice, because that’d be silly, but he had a confident edge to his voice that wavered on the next point. “Except - except the Cat, maybe? Are we inviting him…?”

“But I can’t go, yet,” Holly huffed. “We’re all about to die.”

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

“Yeah. Apparently the defense system hasn’t been updated in a whole week, so there’s currently a class four meteor headed straight for us, and the only way to fend it off is using the manual controls.”

“A class four!” Rimmer exclaimed. “How big is that?”

“Dunno,” Holly confessed. “Just made it up.”

Before anyone could attempt to do something useful, the Cat emerged from an ocean of bed sheets like an aquatic harbinger of doom and pointed accusingly at Kryten. “This is all your fault! If you’d just done the computer thingy when you said you would-”

“B-but you were lying on top of the keyboard!” Kryten sputtered. “And then when I heard the horrible news about Mr. Rimmer and Mr. Lister, well - how was I supposed to think about anything else?!”

“Don’t blame this on _me_ ,” Rimmer hissed, “you know I already feel responsible enough for one Red Dwarf’s demise!”

“Yeah, Krytes, don’t be insensitive,” Lister huffed.

“Don’t defend me! I don’t need your defense!”

“ _Rimmer_ …”

“Isn’t anybody going to investigate the computers?” Holly questioned. Their entreaty was met with the rapidly escalating arguments of the crew. “Anybody? Hello...?”

-

Kochanski wrung her hands as she made her way down the corridor. Even though she shouldn’t, she still felt bad about how she’d left things off with Dave yesterday. He’d been in love with her for so long, and for all intents and purposes she had felt she was in love with several different versions of him. And in fact, recent changes were even going to make a reunion with her own Dave extremely bittersweet... If she ever returned to her home dimension, that was.

Whatever the future held, for now she just wanted to make sure that _this_ dimension’s Dave didn’t hold any harsh feelings towards her. She smiled to herself; as flawed as they were at times, she’d grown attached to the misfits on this ship. She valued their companionship, and she wouldn’t want to risk losing any one of their-

There was quite a cacophony coming from Dave’s bunk up ahead. When she saw his door was ajar, she booked it, dreading something was seriously wrong.

...And it was, considering that an eyeful of Rimmer’s naked ass was about as seriously wrong as things could get. She watched, open-mouthed, as Rimmer and Lister argued in the nude, to the utter disinterest of the Cat, who was dutifully filing his nails as if he weren’t also naked and sandwiched beneath the two men. Kryten’s casing was intact, but he had some sort of ridiculous hose attached to his groin, and he was waving it around with a cross look on his face, all the while Holly counted backwards on the screen. All in all, it looked like the most disastrous gay (and one nonbinary computer) orgy ever held.

Slowly, Kristine shook her head. “I am too much of a lesbian for this.”

“What?” Rimmer’s head snapped around like in _The Exorcist_. “Lesbian? Where? _You?_ ”

“I knew you weren’t right for Mr. Lister,” Kryten boasted.

Rimmer turned to Lister, who he had been shaking by the shoulders. “Is that the real reason we’re here together? No chance with the last vagina in the universe, so you made the switch to cock?”

“Don’t be like that, Rimmer,” Lister groaned, peeling Rimmer’s pasty hands off him. “It’s rude to reduce people to their genitals…”

“Says the man who propositioned the whole ship,” the Cat interjected. He traded a knowing look with Rimmer that filled Lister with dread. He had to make sure _that_ alliance never got fortified.

“Hey, it’s not like that! I like you all as people, too!” Lister paused to survey the anarchy reigning over his bedroom, almost reconsidering. “...Somewhat.”

Kryten sniffed, touched by this half-assed expression of affection. “Mr. Lister…” He took a step forward but staggered, underestimating his attachment’s girth. Kochanski’s hands flew up to block out the sight, even though logically she knew it was just a synthetic vacuum hose.

“I’m going to give you all some privacy,” she said, backing away a little before all but sprinting out of the room.

“Kristine, wait,” Holly droned. “Somebody’s got to take charge of the defensive shields...”

The screen went blank. Kryten unhooked his hose and then followed suit, more distrustworthy of Kochanski’s heroic prowess than of Rimmer’s sexual deviance (although he did cast them one last, teary look before he went). Meanwhile, the Cat had sunk back beneath the covers, and was snoozing loud enough to rock the bed.

Lister felt as though he’d aged ten years when he finally locked eyes with Rimmer.

“I’ll admit it,” he said. “Kristine’s revelation inspired my proposition. Not _just_ because she’s not available anymore,” he said quickly, beating Rimmer to the paranoid punch, “but because things can change, out here.” They looked to the window, where the dark, oily void of space stretched, on and on into infinity. “You’ve got more time to think. Not just desperate thoughts, either. I care about you, Rimmer. I missed you so much while you were gone. And I care about that smeghead,” he said, pointing at the unconscious Cat, “and that jealous, pearl-clutching robot, and that deadpan computer, and that nice lesbian I pined after for _literal_ ages.”

Rimmer was looking away still, at the window. Lister watched one massive nostril flare.

“...Couldn’t just monologue a love confession for _me,_ Listy? You had to make it less special by combining it with everyone else’s?”

Lister rolled his eyes. “You get what I mean.”

The stars twinkled like holes punched in a galactic garbage bag. Rimmer felt the tentative fingers reaching for his and took them, intertwined them with his own.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> some stuff:
> 
> -this is my centennial fic!!! ive been writing fics since i was 12!!! im 22!!! as such, it might feel kind of rushed because i was writing it at the last second but wanted to make it on june 10th, since that’s the exact day when i first posted my first fanfic online
> 
> -on that note, i tried sooooo hard to clean up the point of view, but it still might be all over the place and i apologize for that.
> 
> -i wasn’t going to include kochanski but then i was like “tosa........ you’ve had a crush on chloe annett ever since you watched her on that red dwarf trivia special. cmon. u can’t exclude ur gf”
> 
> -plus idk, since this is my centennial fic, i’ve got to show some development as a writer/person, and from middle school through to college graduation my sexuality has jumped all over the board and then landed on the big red LESBIAN square. does that mean kochanski is a self-insert? who fuckin knows!!!! maybe i really just wanted to include that “im too lesbian for this shit” line
> 
> -i wanted genderfluid holly because i love both holly iterations and i loved when holly canonically changed gender without there being distasteful jokes about it (that i can remember? i cooked a lot while watching red dwarf) and ever since norman lovett was recast my internal “fix-it” solution has been to headcanon holly as switching comfortably between either gender presentation
> 
> -it was important to me the story end on a cozy, somewhat polyamorous note, because even though it’s all meant to be humorous, i didn’t want the takeaway to be “gay sex is weird and hilarious!!!!” instead i wanted the focus to be on the neuroticism of the dwarfers but their ultimate attachment to each other. i hope i did ok on that front!
> 
> -thank you to whoever compiled [this list of sex euphemisms](http://thoughtcatalog.com/jim-goad/2014/12/400-euphemisms-for-sexual-intercourse/) and to whoever listed a bunch of the Cat’s nicknames for the other characters on [his wiki page](http://reddwarf.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cat)
> 
> -yes, lister calling rimmer a dom was definitely a fifty shades of smeg reference lmao
> 
> -10/13/16 - made some edits just for funsies. i was initially going to just fix typos and awkward syntax, but i made some slightly bigger changes that should hopefully make the whole story run more smoothly


End file.
